It’s the fourth quarter, folks, and we’re now 75% done with our upper-east odyssey of fish, photography, road miles, fast food, and cheap motels.

Last week, Pete McDonald and I completed the third leg of content gathering for our impending collaborative book release. We started in Freeport, Maine on August 17th with Captain Eric Wallace who showed us a cross-section of his immense sand and mudlflat fishery in Casco Bay. We got to sight-cast to some serious stripers in skinny water, but the bright skies and temps in the mid-eighties had them acting a bit sulky. From there we ran down to Boston and spent a couple of days with Dave Skok and Rich Armstrong. Rich found some really nice fish that were blasting bait under birds in Boston Harbor, and Skok gave us a whirlwind tour of his shore fishing gig and fly-tying enclave. As you might guess from a guy that ties like a billion flies a year, Skok’s office looked like a desk and a vice neatly assembled inside a bombed-out poultry farm.

After Boston, we took the Woods Hole ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard to chase fish with Jamie Boyle. On that leg we got to see first-hand how well a giant hookless musky plug works as a bass and bluefish teaser. While Jamie worked them into a froth with the plug, we dropped flies into it’s wake and caught some honker fish. From the Vineyard, we ferried back to the mainland, drove to Hyannis, and took another ferry to Nantucket. There we met Shawn Bristow who parked us on a massive tidal rip where schools of bluefish up to 15 pounds were surfing down the face of a two-foot standing wave to eat our flies. The next morning, with weather threatening, Shawn parked us over a sandbar where schools of bonito were speeding around and eating sandeels (and flies that looked like sandeels).

On August 23rd, we ferried from Nantucket back to Hyannis as the first Nor’easter of the 2010 season slammed into Cape Cod. Our last two days were spent with Captain Jim Ellis in Barnstable and Corey Pietraszek in Newport, Rhode Island. Despite a driving rain and winds up to 30 knots, we did find a few fish working under birds, and once again I was glad that I had packed along the underwater housing.

In October, we’ll be wrapping up the shooting and interviews with a trip to Virginia, the Lower Chesapeake, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. From there, we’ll start the tedious process of editing and designing a coffee table book that we’re getting seriously stoked-up about. Best guess for release is late summer of 2011. Jump on this mailing list if you’d like for us to keep you posted of our progress.

Here’s a selection from the shoot, click here to see the rest.

Scarecrows and welfare geese, Casco Bay, Maine

(L) Sunrise bass  (R) Dave Skok wrapping a herring pattern

Birds, bass and bait

Sunset over Beantown

Scenes from Martha’s Vineyard (we couldn’t get within camera range of Obama, maybe because we were wearing buffs?)

Jamie Boyle with a not-small Vineyard bass

This place sells t-shirts, too

Shawn Bristow releasing a green meanie off Nantucket

I’m not exactly sure where the geographic dividing line of hatred is between Yankees and Red Sox fans, but there is one, and it makes the Texas/OU rivalry look like a girlie fight

Captain Jim Ellis: walk softly and carry a big fly box

(L) Captain Corey Pietraszek in Newport, Rhode Island  (R) Storms-a-brewin